Artists Equity Launches TV Division, Taps Griffin Zucosky
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- Artists Equity is launching a scripted television division four years after its 2021 founding, appointing former UCP executive Griffin Zucosky as SVP of Television under President of Film and Television Amy Baer, alongside Head of Unscripted Kyle Wheeler.
- Griffin Zucosky served as Director of Development at UCP until its merger with Universal Television last month, where he oversaw shows including The 'Burbs and Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy and managed UCP's overall deals with Seth MacFarlane's Fuzzy Door, Patrick MacManus's Littleton Road Productions, and Sue Naegle's Dinner Party.
- Artists Equity will apply its talent-ownership backend profit-participation model to scripted TV, a structure the source notes has been largely replaced by cost-plus deals in the streaming era, though performance bonuses have been making a comeback.
- The TV division will remain independent from Artists Equity's first-look deal with Netflix, which covers film, and will likely need bespoke streamer agreements modeled on the Netflix deal for The Rip, which triggered cast and crew bonuses after the film's success on the platform.
- Artists Equity plans to extend its writers' room program — launched earlier this year for feature screenplay development — to television, using it to incubate original series ideas that would then be packaged and sold.
- Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have only ventured into scripted TV a couple of times with prior companies, producing ABC's Push, Nevada and Showtime's City on a Hill.
Why it matters: The expansion gives Artists Equity a second business vertical beyond its Netflix film first-look deal and tests whether its talent-ownership backend model — which paid out bonuses to The Rip's cast and crew — can survive in TV, where the source notes streamers have largely abandoned profit participation in favor of cost-plus structures. For UCP alumni, it creates a landing spot after UCP's merger with Universal Television effectively folded their old division.
